Motus

I've been thinking a lot about soccer lately. We're deep in the season and I'm spending a lot of time on the sidelines. But the thoughts are really not about watching the goals get scored. Not the highlights. It's the other 89 minutes. The positioning. The communication. The player who makes a run nobody notices, into space that never gets used, so that the defender has to choose. That choice is the point. The teammate who gets the ball in a better position because of a run they'll never get credit for. That's the game inside the game. I spent 25 years in marketing, leading teams, building strategies, connecting the work of a lot of different people toward a single result. What I know is that the best outcomes I was ever part of didn't happen because one person was exceptional. They happened because everyone understood the goal, trusted each other, and did their part even when the scorecard didn't show it. That's my daughter in the red out there. She taught me more about this than she knows.

Claiming the R&D tax credits your team deserves starts with understanding (clearly) what actually qualifies. Luckily, Boast published a guide (and a suite of video/blog resources) that break down every detail for U.S. businesses wanting to understand the ins and outs of Section 41, new documentation requirements, and what activities pass the IRS threshold.

The most powerful thing in your business is the story you haven’t told yet. I learned that on Franklin Street in Boston. My first job at Fidelity Investments . One of the most iconic brands in the world. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s where I learned what excellence looks and feels like. Not as a concept… As a standard 💯 The kind that gets into your bones and never leaves. That experience became the foundation for everything I’ve built since - Every client - Every result - Every time I push back on “good enough” My origin story shapes every single thing I do. Here’s what I’ve learned after working with hundreds of CEOs: The ones who tell their origin story grow faster. It’s not a feel-good exercise - It answers the question every buyer is asking: Why should I trust you? Your origin story is part of your Business Ethos. It creates the human foundation of your go-to-market. It’s easy to skip it and jump to leading with the nuts and bolts. The competitive advantage? Putting your origin story in your ideal customer’s hands. They feel an emotional connection to your brand. You invite them to be part of the fabric of your business. Walking down Franklin St and then standing in front of my book on the shelf at Porter Square Books - My origin story having a full-circle moment! ( Lily Weitzman thank you for sharing this moment with me!) What’s the story you haven’t told…yet? GIDDY UP!🚀🤩

A few things happened the last week and half that stuck with me. I was re-elected to the school board last Tuesday. I had coffee (and a mall walk) with a former colleague. I’m heading to lunch with another today. And squeezed in a quick FaceTime, phone call and texts with a couple more along the way. I also saw a post this week that said, if someone crosses your mind, call them. So I did. On the surface, none of this seems connected. But it is. None of these relationships exist because of a title. They exist because of how we showed up when we worked together and how we’ve stayed connected long after. It’s easy to think your impact is the role you’re in at the time. But more often, it’s the relationships you build along the way. Those are the people who: – take your call years later – give you honest advice when you need it – open doors when you’re figuring out what’s next And if you’re lucky, they’re also the ones you can just grab coffee with, walk many laps in the mall and pick up right where you left off. This season has been a good reminder for me: Titles change. Teams change. Companies change. The relationships are what stick. Make it a great Friday!

Every no gets you closer to a yes. I was afraid of hearing "no." As a new founder, I was out there selling and trying to get some early wins. I heard a lot of nos - I was discouraging and frustrating and made me beyond mad! I would immediately go into diagnosis of why it was a no. What I realized bc hindsight is always 20/20 is that the no's were no's for a reason. And that reason was typically readiness. Timing requires readiness on both sides - Sure, I was ready, But the prospect was not - For a variety of reasons. In my persuasive moment of trying to turn a no into a yes, I got the yes and then realized that it was really a no in disguise. HAAA All the no's bring you closer to the yes. I think it also means saying no to more - not just someone saying no to you. I am the type of person who loves to do and explore - I want to try it all! But saying yes to too much is a slippery slope - You end up giving all your energy away and feeling depleted VS Feeling completed For me the yeses reflect: ✅ Who do you want to spend your time with? ✅ What types of challenges light your fire? ✅ Where do you want to share your incredible gifts? How do you handle the nos? GIDDY UP! 🚀 🤩

Who else is going to SaaStock 2026 in #Austin Texas?! 🤠🇺🇸🛫 Me and a killer team of Boast ers ( Mfon Ubaha , Ashley Crawford , Silvia M) are coming to #SaaStock2026 to help tech leaders across Austin take advantage of one of the most generous R&D tax credit landscapes for U. S. companies ever. The OBBB act unlocked a cash windfall for R&D teams that has resulted I. overhauls across state-level programs in kind. At the same time, regulatory compliance and documentation standards took a big shift as well that will fundamentally change how some businesses claim. We’ve got all the details and want to make it easy for deserving businesses to get the #taxcredits their entitled to. Comment or DM here or get at me on the event app to learn more! 🚀🏆🛫

Nobody warns you that your first job as a PM at a growth-stage company isn't building features. It's figuring out which numbers you can actually trust. I learned this the hard way. I joined a reporting platform and inherited a tax report that could take up to 3 months to generate, with multiple manual reviews along the way. Everyone knew it was a problem. It had been on the wishlist for years. But it never made the roadmap — because the logic itself was straightforward. It sounded like a small fix. It wasn't. The underlying architecture made it impossible to scale or fix the workflow reliably. The report couldn't get better until the platform underneath it changed. Once we launched a dedicated platform and rebuilt the foundation, we cut that turnaround to 24 hours. The fix wasn't a feature. It was recognizing that the real bottleneck was a layer deeper than anyone had scoped. I ran into the same pattern building my side project. I was using AI to enrich lead data at scale — names, titles, companies. The outputs looked great. Clean spreadsheets, high fill rates. Then I started spot-checking. The AI was hallucinating contacts that didn't exist. Confident, well-formatted fabrications. So I built a multi-step validation layer — cross-referencing LinkedIn, verifying roles, flagging mismatches. It wasn't the product work I wanted to be doing. But without it, the product was useless. Here's what I've taken from both experiences: At growth-stage companies, there's almost always a gap between what leadership believes the data can do and what it actually can do. The PM's first job isn't shipping — it's closing that gap. Because every feature you build on top of bad data just scales the problem. It's not glamorous. It never makes the roadmap slide. But it's the highest-leverage work you'll do. Curious if other PMs have walked into this — what did your version of "the data is lying to you" look like? #ProductManagement #Analytics #B2BSaaS #DataStrategy #BuildInPublic

In the ever-evolving world of telecommunications, change is the only constant. Today, we dive deep into the insights of Yvonne Patterson, a seasoned expert in the field, as she shares her journey and observations on the telecom landscape. From the early days of long-distance calls to the current buzz surrounding AI, this post will unravel the key developments that have shaped the industry. https://lnkd.in/etuNDqUX